Bucks ran out of offense vs. Celtics
BOSTON – Jayson Tatum picked up an offensive rebound off a missed three and stood in the corner behind the three-point line, ball in hand. He waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Finally, he put up the shot because he had to, as Pat Connaughton finally moved in the general direction to put a hand up. Defensively, the Milwaukee Bucks looked cemented. Bobby Portis collected Tatum’s contemplated miss and broke up the court the other way, except Grant Williams chased him down and blocked what should’ve been an easy basket. Portis looked surprised, and Williams flexed and screamed into the crowd.
Just under seven minutes were left in Game 7 of an NBA Eastern Conference semifinal series, and TD Garden rocked. The Celtics kept firing threes, sweeping in for offensive rebounds, and making more threes. They kept running the Bucks off the three-point line and then contesting the ensuing twos.
The Bucks were beaten 109-81 Sunday afternoon, but they had been worn down before the buzzer sounded on their season.
The Game 7 loss followed a familiar pattern, too, one the Bucks just couldn’t break:
● Boston made a ton of threes – a franchise and NBA Game 7-record 22.
● Milwaukee made just four, the last of which came at the 4-minute, 1second mark of the third quarter.
● Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jrue Holiday combined for 46 points on 19 of 47 shooting. The other five primary rotation players combined for 31 points on 12 of 28 shooting.
● Wesley Matthews, Grayson Allen and Pat Connaughton were combined 0-for-12 from behind the three-point line. George Hill didn’t attempt a shot.
● Grant Williams hit 7 threes and Payton Pritchard hit four, as five Celtics reached double figures in scoring.
Tell Mike Budenholzer his team would allow only 105.6 points per game over a seven-game series and he’d likely tell you the Bucks won it. Unfortunately for the defending champions, they averaged just 97.7 points of their own. Three times they didn’t crack the century mark, including in their two chances to close out the series, first in Milwaukee in Game 6 and then on Wednesday.
Budenholzer and the players made available to speak to the media after each game didn’t want to make the excuse of how big a loss Khris Middleton was while the series was in play, but it was impossible to ignore as Antetokounmpo and Holiday gradually lost some bounce in their steps and touch on their shots.
For as good as the Celtics are defensively, they didn’t have to account for an all-star, a smooth scorer who could go for 40 on any given night and create his own shot with ease. Antetokounmpo’s lanes to the basket are a sliver larger when Middleton plays. Holiday, too, has more room.
“We could’ve used him,” Holiday said of Middleton. “We definitely could’ve used him. He makes big shots and big plays on both ends, but especially the offensive end. Yeah, we missed him, but we also want him to be OK for the future, too. Yeah, he’s missed.”
Middleton would’ve averaged a similar 40 minutes per game as the other members of the Bucks’ Big Three, too, which contributes to the trickle-down effect on both ends of the court for the role players. Matthews, Allen, Connaughton and Hill played more minutes than usual and got no break on Tatum and Brown defensively.
“Obviously, you know, who knows, we’ve had Khris it’d probably be a different story,” Antetokounmpo said. “But at the end of the day, like from (the first game), from Game 3 that we played Chicago we went out there and competed. Obviously, we wasn’t trying to make excuses, ‘we don’t have Khris, and oh it’s going to be tough for us;’ no.
“I think everybody went out there and competed, gave everything they had and that’s what we did from Game 3 against Chicago until Game 7 against Boston. But, if we had him, maybe it would have been a different story. But we didn’t.”
Antetokounmpo was sublime in the first quarter, nearly recording a tripledouble with 10 points on 3-of-6 shooting and six assists to go with nine rebounds.
Over the final three quarters, he was just 7-for-20 for 15 points with three more assists. He missed layups. Hook shots. Rare was the dunk.
“Legs heavy, body heavy, mind heavy, everything was heavy,” Antetokounmpo said with a smile. “No, I was just trying to be aggressive. At the end of the day it’s Game 7 and I’m not going to hold the ball and not go at the rim. I’d rather miss a bunch of shots and keep playing and keep coming and keep being aggressive, keep looking for my teammate, keep making the right plays than go into passive mode.
“I can live with that. I can live with giving everything to the game. When shots that I usually make wasn’t going in, but that’s basketball. That’s sports. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. There’s a winner, there’s a loser. But you’ve got to live with it.” Holiday, too, look worn.
“I mean, it’s really no excuse,” Holiday said. “It’s Game 7. You’ve got to find a way. No, I think the whole series my shot hadn’t been falling the way I wanted it to and I continued to shoot and tried to knock those shots in but I think there was a point in the game where it just kind of felt like nothing was going in. Maybe toward that fourth quarter, but they had it rolling. Grant Williams played a great game. The guy shot the ball well. It’s just unfortunate we fell short.”
Through the four losses, the Bucks simply didn’t make enough shots – particularly from behind the threepoint line. The Bucks were outscored 327-171 from that range in the series overall, and that total accounted for 44% of the Celtics’ points.
On one hand, it’s hard to argue that Milwaukee’s decision to focus in on Tatum and Brown and eliminate the easy baskets was a bad one considering the series totals and game-to-game struggles the Boston stars faced. It’s just that Williams had two career nights. Al Horford had one and Marcus Smart had a 21-point effort.
For Milwaukee, Connaughton was the only player outside of Antetokounmpo (33.9) and Holiday (21.0) to average double figures in the series at 10.3 points per game. Lopez’s 17 points in Game 4 were the most of anyone outside of Antetokounmpo and Holiday in any one game.
And with the season on the line, the Bucks missed 29 three-pointers.
“We didn’t make enough threes for sure,” Antetokounmpo said. “Obviously not having a guy out there that gives us 20, 25 points per game does also contribute to that. But it was just tough. It was tough. It was tough to score the ball. It was tough to get everybody involved. It was tough to get people going. But It’s playoff basketball.
“It wasn’t easy. I don’t think it was easy for them, either. It wasn’t easy for us.”